‘That mad charge. Three of the little boys lost kinsmen there. I hardly dare face my friends here in Warsaw, and their mourning.’
‘For such noble deaths? One should rejoice.’
‘Suppose it was Casimir.’
‘Fiddlestick,’ said the Princess.
Jenny found Marie Walewska in the throes of packing. Her face was flushed; her eyes sparkled. ‘Yes, I’m going to him! He wanted me sooner; the minute he reached Vienna; but there was no way I could get there, with the Austrian troops still here. Now! I cannot wait to see him, to see him triumphant. Oh, Jenny!’
‘I am so glad.’ Jenny put the Princess’s offer as succinctly as she could.
‘Kind of her!’ Marie flushed crimson. ‘But no need. My husband’s niece and her husband go with me, the Wittes. Josephine Witte is a good friend of mine. You must know about her; she had one of the first divorces under the new law.’ Her colour rose. Was she thinking of a possible divorce for herself, and the marriage that might follow? ‘Do tell the Princess that I would be delighted if she felt like joining us for the journey. And you too, dear Jenny.’
But Jenny did her best to dissuade the Princess from going. ‘No good will come of it, I am sure.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Princess Isobel. ‘My cousin Josef urges it. He has great hopes of this peace conference, but cannot be there himself. Now Talleyrand is in disgrace with Napoleon, Poland will need all her friends.’
Travelling fast, the little party reached Vienna in four days. Marie’s old friend Duroc had found her a house at Modling, about ten miles from the palace of Schonbrunn, where Napoleon had established himself, but quiet Marie had contrived to make it quite clear that she did not expect the Princess to stay with her. Jenny thought she had got a little tired of Isobel’s talk of her great ancestor, Jan Sobieski, and his heroic march to save Vienna, and did not entirely blame her. But it left them with a problem about lodgings, since the city was crowded to overflowing. The owner of the hotel, where the Princess usually stayed, merely shrugged his shoulders. ‘Highness, you should have sent in advance. It desolates me to have to refuse …’ He had come out to her carriage, and stood bareheaded in the hot July sun. ‘But I have a letter for you,’ he went on quickly, fearing, as Jenny did, an explosion. ‘It was left with me some days ago.’
‘Paul Genet.’ The Princess was reading it rapidly. ‘Obliging of him! He has taken the liberty of getting me an apartment in the Landstrasse. We’ll do well enough there. Thank you, my man. Tell the coachman to drive on, Jenny.’
Surveying the luxurious first-floor apartment, Jenny could not help wondering about its Austrian owners, presumably turned out to make room for their conqueror’s friends. ‘Talleyrand may be in disgrace,’ said the Princess with satisfaction, ‘but he is evidently far from powerless. This will do very well.’
The apartment was soon a meeting place for the young Polish aristocrats of the Polish Lancers, who were quartered near Schönbrunn, and they crowded into the Princess’s box at the theatre and the opera, competing for her attention, telling Jenny their stories of death and glory at Somosierra, when they could not tell the Princess. There was a rumour going around that the new Duchy of Warsaw was to gain territory from Austria under the terms of the peace treaty, and they made no secret of their conviction that they had earned this.
Paul Genet had been out of town when they arrived, but came to call ten days or so later, and Jenny was surprised how pleased she was to see him. It was good to be treated as a person in her own right again, not just an appendage of the Princess.
Isobel thanked Genet very graciously for the apartment and asked civilly after Talleyrand. ‘I am only sorry he is not here in person. We miss him sadly. Tell him so, when you write.’
‘I certainly will, Highness. And he has specially charged me to ask after the progress of your young Prince, and his schoolfellows.’
‘Admirable, of course. But Jenny can tell you about that better than I can. If you will excuse me, I must get ready for the opera. I am joining Madame Walewska in her box tonight, so I’ll have no need of your company, Jenny. You will entertain Monsieur Genet for me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, when she had left them. ‘You expected to go?’
‘No matter. It’s only Salieri. But, it’s true, I always enjoy seeing Marie Walewska. She’s so happy! It does one good just to be with her. She glows with it. And isn’t it amazing how she goes on in society?’
‘She’s powerfully protected,’ he said drily. ‘Long may it last for her. Did you know that Napoleon delayed his entry to Schönbrunn because the Archduchess Marie Louise was lying ill there?’
‘No. Unusually civil of him, surely?’
‘That’s what I thought. Tell me about the group of young Poles who share their attentions between the Princess and Madame Walewska? What do you think of them?’
She thought about it for a moment. Then, ‘Frankly, anything I say will be unfair to them.’
‘Promising! Why?’
‘Because they treat me like a thing; like the Princess’s waiting-gentlewoman. Which is what I am.’
He laughed. ‘Admirable. I know just how you feel. So granted this totally unreasonable prejudice of yours, tell me what you think of them.’
‘I wish they didn’t compete and quarrel all the time among themselves. You should see them, around the Princess, debating points of precedence, the military added to the dynastic. I find it childish, Monsieur Genet, and not hopeful for the future of Poland.’
‘Would you be very much surprised if I told you that Napoleon himself is said to have made very similar remarks?’
‘It’s so sad,’ she said. ‘I often think Lech is worth ten of them. He really cares for his country, and for the Princess as representing it.’
‘Which she deserves?’
‘I work for her, Monsieur Genet.’
‘Forgive me. Now, you are to tell me about the little Prince. How, truly, do he – and the school go on?’
‘This is for Talleyrand?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Then tell him that I am worried. I’m glad to have this chance to say it. In theory, the school was a brilliant idea …’
‘But in practice?’
‘It’s just making matters worse, I think. The masters fight among themselves, and for the boys’ favour. Because the boys are their future masters, don’t you see? Specially Casimir. Just imagine yourself a struggling tutor, disciplining him, the possible future King of Poland? I’ve tried to say this to the Princess. To suggest that she needs an outsider. A headmaster, I suppose? Someone who is afraid of no one. Impossible, of course.’
‘Very interesting,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Miss Peverel. I’ll most certainly tell my master.’
In England, news of Napoleon’s defeat of Austria seemed less immediately important than events nearer home. All the talk was of the Duke of York who had had to resign as Commander in Chief after the parliamentary enquiry into his mistress’s sale of commissions in his name. ‘Duke or darling,’ said the wits, tossing coins. General Moore had been killed at the evacuation of Corunna, and Arthur Wellesley’s triumph in Portugal had been thrown away by the ridiculous terms of the Convention of Cintra, negotiated by his successors. And this summer’s Walcheren expedition had been a disaster from start to finish.
With so much to concern him nearer home, it was hardly surprising that Canning had found no employment for Glynde. But he began to hold out hopes in the summer of 1809, detecting, he said, a hint of slackening in Russian hostility to England. Then, in September, he fought a duel with his political rival Castlereagh and lost office as a result. Granville Leveson Gower resigned too, and with them went all Glynde’s hopes of employment.
‘It’s bad.’ His aunt always faced facts. ‘I am so sorry, Glynde. Just glad that you are here with me to face it.’
‘And so am I! I begin to think you’re my only friend.’
‘At least you can count on me.’ She smiled at him. ‘
Up to a point. It struck me, when I heard the news of Canning’s duel, that a good aunt would catch a tertian fever, die, and leave you her heir. You are, of course. But,’ again her heartwarming smile, ‘I don’t propose to die even for you, dear Glynde.’
‘I should think not indeed.’ He felt better already. ‘I’m not even going to let myself wish my father and brother would.’
‘No, barbarous. And besides, to decline into a landowner, so dull,’ she said. ‘But I think I must ask it – your funds, Glynde?’
‘Out of tune,’ he groaned. ‘I’m rolled up, aunt. It’s all over with me. Nothing for it but to join the army and let the French oblige me with a bullet through the head.’
‘That’s no way to talk.’
‘Forgive me! But wherever I look I see nothing but disaster. We’re even at odds with the Americans now; Napoleon is isolating us, slowly and surely. It’s a glum lookout.’
‘But we’re still free. I wish we would hear what happened to your Princess Ovinska and the little boy when the Austrians took Warsaw and the Poles went on the rampage through Galicia. And to Jenny Peverel.’
‘I’m sure they will have been unharmed.’ But he had lain awake, night after night, trying to convince himself of this. ‘The Princess has cousins everywhere,’ he said now. ‘And of course she would protect Miss Peverel. The Tsar himself is her friend; she will have been quite safe either at Rendomierz or further north in her other estate in Russian-held Lithuania. She has her own army of serfs to guard her; all devoted both to her and to the little Prince. But just the same I’d give a good deal to have news of her. It’s extraordinary how little one hears about what goes on in what used to be Poland.’
‘You cannot love her still, Glynde, after all this time?’
‘I think I shall love her always.’ How could he explain it? ‘There will never be anyone like her. I cannot imagine marrying. Oh, I suppose in the end – I don’t like to speak of dead men’s shoes – but if I should find myself succeeding as Lord Ringmer I might feel called upon to marry some well-bred young person – you’re laughing at me, aunt?’
‘I was feeling a little sorry for the well-bred young person. I confess I rather hope she refuses you when you come to the point. I wish I could meet this Princess who has cast such a spell on you! And that you could see her again, come to that. Seriously, Glynde, it makes me sad to see you creating an idol for yourself and falling down before it. Just think what a good marriage could do for you now.’
‘Money in my purse?’ He smiled at her lovingly. ‘Don’t think I haven’t seen you trying. All those charming young grand-daughters of your friends we have entertained of late! With not a word to say for themselves! Ribbons and laces, and young Betty as Hamlet! And dear mama watching our every movement.’
‘You’re spoiled, Glynde, that’s what’s the matter with you.’ She shook her head at him. ‘Now, let us sit down and be realists. Not the army: you and I know you are not strong enough. I didn’t nurse you through that wound of yours to have you throw it all away. Not the church. Not marriage.’
‘Debtors’ prison,’ he said savagely. ‘My only future.’
‘You’re not …’
‘In debt? Not yet. I’m not that much of a fool, but in the end, I am bound to be.’ He took an angry turn round the room, came back to stand looking down at her, his face setting in lines she had not seen before. ‘If it were not for the chance of inheriting the title, aunt, I’d throw the gentleman to the winds and go into trade. I could make money. I know it. I’ve watched my friends, Richards and Warrington. I’ve as good a mind as theirs, and better connections, though you wouldn’t think it to look at me now. But how can I drag the prospective title through the dirt?’
‘Glynde! There’s something else, something I’ve been wondering whether to tell you, to add to your troubles.’
‘Yes? What now? Let’s have it, aunt.’
‘It’s your brother’s wife. They say she’s dying.’
‘And he’ll remarry! So – no dead men’s shoes after all. Then I really had better look about me. Thank you for telling me. It makes things simpler in a way. No estate. No title. No responsibilities.’
‘Mr. Rendel?’
‘Yes?’ Walking down the Steyne a few days later, Glynde stopped at the sound of his own name.
‘I’ve a letter for you, mister. From a friend a long way off. Worth half a guinea to you, is it?’
‘But how –?’
‘No questions, mister, no trouble. Half a guinea and you gets it.’
‘Oh, very well!’ Savagely, he wondered what would have happened if he had not borrowed some money from his aunt that very morning, the first time he had been forced to do so.
‘Treat it gentle, guv. It’s come a long way by the look of it. I’d take it home out of the wind I reckon if I was you.’ He exchanged the tattered letter for the half guinea Glynde held out and disappeared smartly down one of Brighton’s narrow lanes.
His aunt was out paying calls and he went straight to his room and opened the letter, sure that many other people had done so before him. Creased, stained, barely legible, it was dated from Vienna, in August. Just the place-name and date. The Princess’s hand? He had thought so, reading the superscription as the letter was held out to him, was now sure of it. ‘You will know my hand,’ she wrote. ‘I dare not sign this. A good friend of yours promises to get it to you. I need your help. Come to us. I ask it as your old friend.’
And a postscript in a hand he did not know: ‘I have undertaken to get this to you, be responsible for your journey. You will not regret it. Destroy this letter. Be ready. Wait where you are for instructions. Tell no one. Your friend from Tilsit.’
Talleyrand. The agreed phrase. My friend. My father. But can I trust him? Of course not, but that was not the point. He had heard of the extraordinary scene in which Napoleon had insulted Talleyrand and deprived him of office. Talleyrand had taken it with his habitual sang-froid. Could this letter be a result? It certainly opened up the most extraordinary vistas. But, infinitely more important was the fact that Isobel needed him. Wanted him? ‘And what have I to lose?’ He said it aloud.
About to destroy the letter, he hesitated. Tell no one? He owed it to her to tell his aunt. And Canning? He was less certain of this.
‘I wonder what they want of you,’ said Maud Savage thoughtfully, having read the letter and its postscript. ‘It seems quite extraordinary. And – did you know that Talleyrand and the Princess were on such terms?’
‘They certainly knew each other; that’s of course. There was a young protégé of Talleyrand’s dangling round Miss Peverel. Genet, his name was.’
‘Good gracious,’ said Maud, amused. ‘And there was I thinking Jenny Peverel had turned old maid, doomed to lead apes in hell.’
‘She well may. She doesn’t seem to care what she looks like, or what one thinks of her.’
‘Fatal!’ He had an uncomfortable feeling that she was laughing at him again. ‘But none of that is to the point. You cannot seriously be thinking of going, Glynde? An invitation endorsed by Napoleon’s right-hand man? You risk being taken for a traitor. May risk being one, for all you know.’
‘No. Talleyrand’s out of office, remember. Napoleon kicked him out last winter. If he wants me there, I am sure he has a reason for it that is not to my disadvantage.’
‘Nor to his, I take it.’
‘That’s of course!’ Fantastic thoughts were crowding through his mind. Even far off here in England, he had heard rumours about the Princess and Murat, the Princess and Davout, even the Princess and her cousin Josef Poniatowski. He had refused to believe them, still did. But just suppose that her headstrong great lady’s behaviour had allowed her to be compromised … Suppose she needed a husband, one she knew she could trust? He had made up his mind. ‘It’s hard to see how the summons could possibly come, aunt, but if it does, I shall go. After all, what have I to lose?’
Much to Jenny’s relief, the Princess decided to leave V
ienna as soon as the Treaty of Schönbrunn was signed. Calling on Marie Walewska to say goodbye, she found her in tears.
‘It’s the shock,’ Marie explained. ‘But he’s safe, thank God!’ And then: ‘You hadn’t heard? A mad young German tried to kill him. They caught him just in time – a savage knife hidden in his “petition”. Jenny, just think, he might be dead!’
And the world a safer place. But Jenny did not say it, aware that Marie had more to tell her. It came tumbling out. ‘Tell no one; no one in the world. Particularly not the Princess. I’m … oh, Jenny, I’m so happy! And he’s so pleased! Nothing’s good enough for me! I’ll be lucky if I ever get to Paris, so surrounded as I shall be with doctors, with care, with cherishing. Jenny, do you understand what I am saying?’
‘Of course I do.’ Jenny kissed her. ‘And no wonder the Emperor is so pleased. His first child!’
‘Yes.’ Marie laughed. ‘You’d think no one had ever been in this situation before. It’s lucky I’m an experienced mother. Oh, Jenny, just think what this may mean.’
‘Dearest Marie; don’t hope too much.’
A courier caught up with the Princess’s carriage on the second night of their slow journey east. He was taking the details of the Treaty of Schönbrunn to Warsaw and was happy to stop and drink the Princess’s health while he told her about it. Jenny, who had been making arrangements for the night, rejoined them to find the Princess rewarding him munificently.
‘It’s great news,’ she said. ‘The beginning of what we have prayed for. Western Galicia has been ceded by Austria to the Duchy of Warsaw. Just think, Jenny, Rendomierz is on the way to being Polish at last.’
‘French,’ said Jenny.
‘Oh, don’t be such a voice of doom, Jenny! It will make no difference to you. And for us, I am sure, it is the first step. I knew it was worth my while to go; it’s not for nothing I’ve done my best to entertain all those old diplomats; to speak to them of my country, of Poland. Oh, my goodness!’ She clapped her hand to her mouth, looking, Jenny thought, both appalled and amused. ‘But what will happen to him?’
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